easyJet accidentally cancels thousands of summer holidays

Ah, easyJet. You get it so right, so often, but then you drop clangers the size of Belgium.

Yesterday the budget airline emailed thousands of customers to inform them that their summer flights had been cancelled. A terrible shame, for sure, throwing many customers into a panic over their holiday plans. Were alternative flights available? What about the hire car? Do we still have a holiday?

Flights from May to August were cancelled - of course customers were offered a refund or the opportunity to book onto another flight, but the plans of many passengers had been screwed over good over proper, and no doubt several started making alternative plans.

Then several hours later, a second email from easyJet appeared:

"If you received an email earlier tonight that your flight was cancelled, please ignore the previous email. Your flight is NOT cancelled. We would like to sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused by a technical error.

"We are writing to let you know that we have had to reschedule some of our flights. Unfortunately, your flight is one of those affected."

In many instances, flights had simply been shifted earlier or later in the day, but none had been cancelled. Tremendous effort, easyJet.

5 comments

esarty

I was one of those affected by this - was amused by the fact that when I called them to enquire what the heck was going on I was greeted by a computer generated voice telling me that I've I'd received an email about cancelled flights I should just check the website as there was going to be an almighty wait to speak to a real person......

Luckily when I received the first email I'd already had a sh*tty day, so wasn't in the mood to go hunting for alternative flight for the esarty family holiday that evening. Got to work early the next day to get started on that - when the second email arrived just before I clicked on the link they sent me to get a full refund....

I got the e-mail and followed the link to re-arrange to a flight on the same day.
Took ages to go through this and found that on the last page the only way to proceed was to pay a £50 fee.
Decided to do this as I could not afford to have no flight home on that day. Assumed EJ would reimburse me. Am I mad?